Enga sangai (eastern) / sandalu (Laiapu) = the bachelors' growth-and-purification cult; the spirit-wife is an ancestral cult-being rather than a fully named goddess, rendered here as deity (cult-ancestress tier). Wiessner & Tumu (1998) date the cult's spread to roughly the seventh generation before the present. The vernacular personal name of the spirit-woman is not consistently recorded, hence empty term values.
Domains
male initiation
growth and fertility
Powers
MAKE the secluded bachelors grow to manhood
Sources
Gibbs, P. (1995). 'The Sandalu Bachelor Ritual among the Laiapu Enga.' Anthropos 90: 27-47.
Meggitt, M.J. (1964). 'Male-Female Relationships in the Highlands of Australian New Guinea.' American Anthropologist 66(4), pt. 2.
Wiessner, P. & Tumu, A. (1998). Historical Vines. Smithsonian Institution Press, on the spread of the sangai/sandalu cult.